Royal & Sun Alliance goes to India

BRITISH insurance company Royal & Sun Alliance plans to transfer more than 1,100 jobs to India in a bid to cut costs.

The company, Britain's second-largest general insurer, said it expected to save around £10m a year by switching its call-centre and customer service work to Bangalore.

Royal & Sun Alliance already employs 100 workers in India. The figure will rise to 1,200 by 2006.

The firm said some British staff could lose their jobs, but that most of the reduction in UK-based jobs would be achieved through natural turnover and redeployment.

'We work in a very competitive environment and processing some of our work in India will not only help us control costs but will also give us greater operational flexibility,' Royal & Sun's chief executive officer Duncan Boyle said in a statement.

The Amicus and Unifi unions said more than 8,000 job losses had been announced in recent weeks as firms switch jobs to India and other countries where labour costs are considerably cheaper.

'This announcement clearly shows that offshoring presents an unprecedented threat to UK jobs and the economy,' said Amicus national officer David Fleming.

Aviva, Britain's biggest insurer, said last month it would create about 950 offshore jobs in India and Sri Lanka next year to service its UK operations. The company would have said it planned to have 7,000 staff working in overseas call centres by 2007.

Over the past two years nearly 30 big firms have outsourced around 50,000 jobs, mainly call centre and IT posts, to India. HSBC bank has moved 4,000 call centre jobs to India, while Lloyds TSB has shifted 1,500. Phone company BT has said it plans to create 7,000 jobs in India.

Amicus has warned that 200,000 finance jobs could be exported from the UK in the next four years.